Are you using Twitter Lists?

Today we wanted to talk about Twitter Lists. Hands up who is using them? They are probably the least talked about and the least used aspect of Twitter, but there are loads of ways you could and should be using them, especially if you are actively using Twitter.

Because they solve a big issue with Twitter…the noise!

Twitter is a noisy fast paced world. In the time it takes you to read this article on average 1,710,000 tweets will have been tweeted. That is insane. It is hard to keep up with our timelines, and sift out the stuff we care about, and for that reason it can be hard to engage and build relationships with the right kinds of people on twitter, which we need to be doing for it to work for us. This is where lists come into play.

If you don’t know already Twitter Lists simply put, allow you to put anybody in a ‘list,’ so you can then see a timeline of tweets from just those people, this makes it much easier to engage with the right people, or keep an eye on what certain types of people are talking about.

You can make ‘public’ lists that anybody can look at and people get notified if they have been added to a public list, or you can make ‘private’ lists that only you can see.

ACTION: Write down the types of people you want to be talking to on Twitter.
ACTION: Write down a separate list of people you would like to ‘monitor’ on Twitter.

Examples of ways you could use lists…

– Make a list of clients. This could be public or private, and should be all current and past clients. It is important to keep up these relationships like we have talked about in the past, as past clients are your best future clients or future referrers. Aim to talk to these people, ReTweet (RT) their Tweets, reply to them. The aim is to solidify relationships but also keep your business at the top of their mind.

– Target Market List. There are a couple ways you could do this. You may want to make a list public, and name the list something so people take notice when they are added to it. For example if you are targeting manufacturers in the North you may call the list ‘Top Manufacturers in the North.’ Or if you are a fashion company you may call the list ‘Stylish People.’ Once again once people are in the list, interact with them! Don’t sell, sell, sell, but be friendly.

– You could set-up what we call a ‘Talk to’ list. This is a list of a manageable amount of people, between say 10-20, who you make a real effort to talk to for a week/month. This list should be private. After a week/month time, remove them from this list and add them to another list full of past people who have been on your ‘Talk to’ list, then replace them with some new people. You should still keep an eye on your second list, and talk to them, don’t forget about them after the week/month!

– Competition. A private list of competition isn’t a bad idea. You should be keeping an eye on what they are tweeting, what they are doing, who they are talking too, and picking up some tips and tricks from them too.

– Influencers. An influencer is anybody in your industry who has a large following. Talk to these people, if you can get them to reply to you or RT your stuff, then you can access their audiences too.

– People you know offline. This is a great way to build on the relationship you may have started offline. Whenever you get a business card, go find them on twitter and add them to this list. Again it could be private, or you could call it something like ‘friendly people.’ But dip into this list and keep up the relationships by talking to these people regularly too.

What all of this does is simply increase your Top of Mind Awareness with the right kinds of people, and make Twitter a less noisy place! If you want to get some business from Twitter, lists are your best friend!

ACTION: Go to Twitter and create a few lists based on the information in this article. To create a list on the desktop version of Twitter, click your profile picture in the top right and select ‘lists, then in the right sidebar click ‘create new list.’ To add people to a list, on somebodies profile click the ‘cog’ symbol and select ‘add or remove from lists’

ACTION: Keep checking your list timelines, and appropriately interact with these people.